What is the use of different meta sites for different Stack Exchange sites?

I believe a meta site is for discussing the features, bugs and questions relating to a Stack Exchange site, so a single meta site would be a good place to discuss all the things in one place.

Another question: is the Convention badge for a respective meta site required to be eligible for a moderator election for that site? This part is a little confusing. If a user has a good reputation and required badges on a single meta site then, that should be sufficient for him to be eligible for an election on any child Stack Exchange site as we can be sure that he has the knowledge of how a Stack Exchange site works.

3 Answers
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Meta is also for discussing issues specific to that site, such as whether or not tags are appropriate, the on-topicness of questions, site moderator elections, other promotions and contests, and a laundry list of other things that aren't applicable to every other SE site out there.

Only Meta Stack Overflow, which serves as the global Meta Stack Exchange at the moment, is a place for discussing global feature changes and bug reports. It's still possible for per-site Metas to have bug reports and feature requests that are specific to that site, such as SciFi.SE requesting it's "general reference" close reason.

As for the Convention badge, each site has a different atmosphere and very different community. You need to be active in that community's Meta in order to understand what is acceptable and not within that community, and how that community prefers to run their site.

Every site has their own issues and rules that are only relevant to that specific site. For example, on Skeptics all answers must be referenced, no other site in the whole SE network has the same strict citation requirement. We have quite a few meta posts about that topic, none of which are relevant to the general SE population.

There are many topics that are discussed on a per-site meta that just aren't of interest to other sites.

First question: other metas are for discussing site-specific issues, such as what questions are on topic, how to promote the site, etc. This meta is special, because while it serves that purpose for StackOverflow, it's also the one correct place for discussing the Stack Engine software.

Second question: I disagree. Just because I participate on one site doesn't qualify me to participate at any elevated level on another. All the sites are similar, but they have their own cultures and mores that must be respected.